WGS to Host Best-Selling Author Visit

Angie Thomas, author of the best-selling young adult fiction novel “The Hate U Give,” is visiting the OU campus Feb. 22 and 23 to participate in the Take Root Conference and deliver a free, public lecture about her work. Watch the WGS Facebook page for the time and location of the lecture to be announced soon.

Soon to be a major motion picture, “The Hate U Give” tells the story of 16-year-old Starr Carter who moves between very different worlds: the poor neighborhood in which she lives and the suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between the two worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer.

John Green, author of “The Fault in Our Stars,” called “The Hate You Give” a “stunning, brilliant, gut-wrenching novel that will be remembered as a classic of our time.” The book has spent more than eight months on the New York Times bestseller list and was long-listed for the 2017 National Book Award in Young Adult Literature.

OU Women’s and Gender Studies is partnering with other OU departments, as well as classes at John Marshall High School in Oklahoma City as part of a community literacy project to read and discuss Thomas’s book. OU alumni and friends are also invited to read the book in preparation for Thomas’s campus appearance.

“The partnership with John Marshall is the first step in what we hope will become an annual event to bring the university and community together to read and discuss literature through a literacy project called One Book, One Community,” said WGS Director Lupe Davidson. “The One Book, One Community project draws inspiration from similar programs across the country that promote civic unity through the reading of literature.”